Lortz Helomin Ort Helomin Remon
by Aeshdan
Summary: Three months after Elphaba's "death" at the hands of Dorothy Gale, she and Fiyero are safely settled in a distant kingdom, and Elphaba has begun to build a new life for herself. But a bit of unexpected news is about to upend her life once again... this time for the better.


"Miss Elphaba, may I please be excused?"

"Yes, Maree," Elphaba replied.

"Thank you," Maree blurted out, and she leapt to her feet and dashed out of the room. Elphaba smiled slightly and turned back to the rest of her pupils.

Even here in Adagion, one of the great cities of the kingdom of Thorn, her Shiz education put her above probably ninety-five percent of the city's inhabitants. And so she supported herself by offering tutoring, along with some discreet witchery on the side.

A minute later, Maree's voice echoed through the house. "Miss Elphaba! Miss Elphaba!"

"Coming!" she called back. "Excuse me," she added to the students, and made her way back to the bathroom.

"Maree?" she asked the closed door. "What's the matter?"

"Uh…" Even through the closed door, Elphaba could hear the nervousness and embarrassment in Maree's tone. "It's… my… uh, monthlies have started. Do you have any pads?"

"Um…" Elphaba was startled to realize that she didn't know where the pads had got to.

 _Come to think of it,_ thought Elphaba, _I should have had my monthlies by now. We've been here for more than a month. Actually, I don't remember getting monthlies since… Since before_ that _night, actually. That wonderful, wicked night…_

 _Wait a second…_

"Just a sec," she said to the closed door. "I'll go find some." She carefully tamped down the sudden hope that had blossomed in her breast. Right now, she had a panicking girl to take care of, and a whole living room full of students. She could consider other possibilities when they were all gone.

* * *

Later that evening, after the last of her students had gone home, she and Fiyero finally had a moment alone. They sat facing each other across the dinner table. Elphaba had soup and bread and water. She'd usually have small beer, but she dared not take that risk.

Oh, she knew that there was barely enough alcohol in small beer to kill the sickness, but after what had happened to her and Nessarose, she dared not do _anything_ that might risk the baby, the only baby she'd ever get. And since she _could_ draw the taints out of water with her magic, why not do so?

"Elphaba?" asked Fiyero. "Is everything ok? You've been acting distracted all day."

"Yes," she answered, then almost immediately corrected herself. "Maybe. I don't know. There's something I realized today, something that… It's wonderful, or it could be, but it's also terrifying."

"So what is it?" asked Fiyero.

"Earlier today, I had Maree in here. She was having her first moon blood, and… anyway, the point is, that's when I realized that I haven't had those since before we left Oz. Since before that night in the forest. And once I sat down and thought about it, there were other signs too. My breasts have been growing and getting more sensitive, and I've been feeling queasy some mornings. And I've put on a bit of weight. All the signs are there."

It was moments like these when Fiyero's transformation was most disturbing. There was no indrawn breath, no stiffening, none of the things that would have signaled shock or surprise in a human. There was only blankness and silence, as though for a moment the magic that animated his body had failed.

"You mean…" he finally said.

"Yes," she replied. "I'm pregnant."

"We…" He stalled and started again. "We're going to have a child."

"Yes," she said. "Our child. Blood of our… blood…" She trailed off, a vision of a sheet of parchment covered with closely-written runes in an unfamiliar script floating before her mind's eye.

"Elphaba?" asked Fiyero.

" _Lortz helomin ort helomin remon_ ," she breathed.

"What?" asked Fiyero.

She shook her head. " _Lortz helomin ort helomin remon_ ," she repeated more clearly. "It's a spell from the Grimmerie. Roughly translates as 'Let blood from blood be restored'. I must have read it over a hundred times, trying to understand it, find a way to make it work."

"So what does the spell do, that you wanted it so badly?"

Elphaba took a deep breath. "It's a spell of restoration. It returns someone who's been transformed, or crippled, or whatever, to their natural state. I wanted it to use on Nessarose, to fix her legs. And I'll admit, I hoped it might be able to fix my green-ness, too."

"So why couldn't you use it? Was it too hard to read?"

"No, I could read the spell just fine. That wasn't the problem. The problem is that to restore someone to their original body, the spell needs some way to know what that original body was like. Now, there were two ways it could do that. One way would be to use both parents as foci. Their bloods mingled to create the person, so the spell could simply do that once again. But our mother was dead, so that wouldn't have worked."

Elphaba was conscious of an odd sense of detachment. She was suddenly very aware of every motion of her body, every syllable that came out of her mouth. These next words would change everything.

"The other way to cast the spell would be to have the child of the person you wanted to cure, and that child's other parent. The parents' bloods mingled in the child. Take the child's blood, tell the magic to remove everything that came from the one parent, and you have the other's blood. Only Nessarose never had any children."

"But we _do_ ," finished Fiyero. "Or we _will,_ at least. If you still had the Grimmerie…"

"I don't need the Grimmerie," said Elphaba. "I read that spell over so many times, spent so much time poking at it, I think I have it memorized by now."

"You want to try and cast the spell from _memory_?" asked Fiyero.

"There won't be any danger to Nessarose," said Elphaba. "I know enough to be sure on that. Nor any danger to me, for that matter. The only one who'd be hurt if I got something wrong would be you."

Elphaba took a deep breath. Her next words came out astonishingly level.

"So, are you willing to take the risk?"

"How soon can we do it?" responded Fiyero, his tone definite.

"Not anytime soon," said Elphaba. "Our child will need to be born and named for the spell to recognize her, and I'll need at least a few weeks to recover from the birth before I can attempt magic on that scale. So… seven months, maybe?"

* * *

 _ **Six Months Later**_

Elphaba stared down at the tiny body in her arms.

"I'd thought our Nessarose might be green like me," she said, somewhat hazily. "I'd thought she might be pink, like her father. I'd even thought she might split the two and come out pale green. Yet somehow, I never expected this."

The majority of Nessarose's skin was indeed pink, or rather the angry red that would fade to pink in time. But all across her skin, delicate designs of leafy vines had been traced in the same bright green as Elphaba's skin. There was even what looked like a closed rosebud over her heart.

"Natural tattoos," said Fiyero. He cocked his head. "They're kind of pretty."

"Of course they are," said Elphaba. "How could the daughter of Fiyero Tigelaar be anything less than beautiful?"

"Gwah," commented Nessarose, detaching from Elphaba's nipple. Her eyes opened, revealing themselves to be the same rich brown as Fiyero's. The few strands of her hair, on the other hand, seemed to match Elphaba's jet-black locks.

And she was beautiful. More beautiful than anything Elphaba had ever seen or imagined.

* * *

 _ **A Month Later**_

"What's with all the rigamarole?" asked Fiyero, from where he sat cross-legged in the middle of a circle of runes.

"The Grimmerie was more than just a book of incantations," explained Elphaba as she double-checked the circle of runes around Nessarose. "There was magic woven all throughout it to help with casting the spells. That's why I could read it where the Wizard and Morrible couldn't, its magic recognized mine. All this," she said, stepping into the third circle, "should do the same thing for this spell."

Elphaba reached inside herself for the magic. There was the familiar sense of _acuity_ , of colors becoming more vivid, lines and angles and edges sharper. Green light limned her spread hands, and with a flick of her fingers a bolt of magic leapt from her hand to the runes, which began to glow like green coals.

Elphaba took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and pictured the page of the Grimmerie in her mind's eye. Outside, she felt the change as the sun began to slip below the horizon, as day became night. Though she couldn't see it, she knew the moon shone at half-full tonight. The time-between-times on the night of a half moon. There would never be a better time to cast a spell of transformation.

 _Here goes,_ she thought, and began to chant.

Fiyero knew that he couldn't actually feel butterflies in his stomach, or ice in his veins, or any of the other symptoms of fear. But he could have sworn he felt a phantom echo of fear when Elphaba began to speak. Her voice took on the same echoing resonance he remembered from the day of his capture, the day when she had made him what he now was in that desperate attempt to save his life. The very air seemed to ring and the earth trembled with the power in each word.

 _Felto neudad belento sortenti_

 _Con Fiyero ren olenso venri_

 _Boleo nestril ret mortz osteramon_

 _Lortz helomin ort helomin remon_

As Elphaba chanted, the circle of runes around Fiyero lifted up a couple of feet above the floor, leaving behind a second circle of luminous green runes, still on the floor where they'd started. The levitating circle began to spin, faster and faster until the runes blurred. Then suddenly the circle shattered, the runes flying inwards to cover Fiyero's body. To his astonishment, he felt them yank on him, pulling him up until he hovered a couple of inches above the floor, straw arms and legs outspread.

 _Mertor venseido relston lumielle_

 _Con Nessarose tweir esoray ferel_

 _Deolis matenda colsir aemon_

 _Lortz helomin ort helomin remon_

The circle of runes around Nessarose lifted up off the floor and began to spin just as Fiyero's circle had. Then the runes shattered and flew inwards to coat Nessarose, but to Fiyero's great relief, they did not levitate her as they had him, instead brightening and dimming like the beats of a heart. Nessarose cooed, dark eyes sparkling as she waved her tiny arms and legs about.

 _Genso mas vol tor esen ertari_

 _Con Elphaba resco vox belari_

 _Mir lucien tinvurialemon_

 _Lortz helomin ort helomin remon_

Elphaba's eyes were still closed as the third circle of runes shattered inwards and covered her body. Fiyero strove to brand that image on his mind. He could feel the magic gathering towards its climax, and if it went wrong and killed him, he wanted the last thing he saw to be his beloved in her glory.

 _Ort aesh, shamai, ruahk, aretz, daemon_

 _Lortz helomin ort helomin remon!_

As Elphaba uttered the final syllable, Fiyero burst into jade-green flames. There was no pain, just as there had been no pain on that horrible day he had had to see Elphaba fake her demise. Instead, there was merely nothingness, an end to the magically granted sensations in his limbs. The fires consumed Fiyero, and he knew no more.

* * *

As she uttered the final syllable of the spell, Elphaba's eyes snapped open just in time to see the green flames engulf Fiyero. Elphaba almost ran to him, but stopped herself at the last moment. The spell was still in motion, and if she broke the circle now all that magic would be released. If there was any chance that Fiyero might actually come through this alive, that would end it. Worse, breaking the spell would leave Nessarose helpless in the face of uncontrolled magic. As it was, she might have destroyed the love of her life, but at least their child would live.

Seven heartbeats later, the flames vanished as abruptly as they'd appeared. And there was Fiyero, still covered in those glowing runes (and absolutely nothing else), and levitating a few inches off the floor, but now unmistakably _human_. For a long moment, he hovered there and Elphaba just stared at him, drinking in the sight of his restored features, of bronzed flesh, rippling muscles, long molasses-blonde hair. His eyes were shut, but Elphaba was sure they'd been returned to their former rich brown.

Then all the runes, those on the floor, those on Elphaba and Nessarose, and those holding Fiyero up, winked out as one. The almost palpable pressure of the spell vanished, leaving behind only a faint feeling of magic in the air.

Elphaba rushed to Fiyero. A flash of magic called a blanket from the couch to her hand, and she draped it over Fiyero's unconscious form.

"Fiyero?" she asked frantically. "Fiyero, can you hear me? Fiyero?"

* * *

"…hear me? Fiyero?"

"Guh."

For a moment, Fiyero wondered who had uttered that monosyllable. Then he realized it had been him. After another moment, he remembered how his eyes worked, and opened them to see Elphaba's face only a few inches from his.

"Fiyero!" she cried, and pressed her lips to his. For a long moment, he simply lost himself in the pleasure of the kiss, and then it clicked. His eyes had to be opened and closed. He could feel Elphaba's lips pressing against his, and the hard floor beneath him, and a blanket draped over him. The spell had worked. He was human once again.

If Elphaba hadn't been blocking his mouth, he probably would have shouted with joy. As it was, he contented himself with holding Elphaba to himself with one hand and tangling the other in her hair.

After about a minute, Elphaba finally came up for air. Fiyero pushed himself up into a sitting position, the blanket falling away to puddle in his lap.

"Oh, Fiyero!" said Elphaba. "It worked! It actually worked!" She paused, staring at his bare chest for a moment, and then suddenly burst into laughter.

"What?" he asked, unable to keep a grin off his own face.

"I just realized," she said with a giggle, "I haven't got a _stitch_ of male clothing for you. Now, let's see if I remember this one right…"

She wiggled her fingers a bit, her eyes narrowed in concentration. A luminous green mandala appeared in the air in front of her, before collapsing into a burst of green light that struck the blanket where it covered Fiyero's legs and hips. There was a flash, and then Fiyero found himself clad in a shirt and pants made of the same patchwork fabric as the now-vanished blanket.

"There we go," said Elphaba with a smile. "Sorry about the pattern. That was one of the few spells Glinda could do better than me."

"It's still a lot better than going naked," said Fiyero with a laugh. "Well, for most purposes, at least," he added.

Elphaba ducked her head and blushed slightly. "This should last until high noon tomorrow."

"That should give us enough time to get me some proper clothes tomorrow," said Fiyero. "And place an order for your wedding dress," he added with a smirk.

"Wedding dress?" asked Elphaba, looking startled.

"Now that I'm human once more," said Fiyero, "I'd really like to get properly married as soon as possible. And start on some brothers and sisters for little Nessarose."

"That," said Elphaba, her eyes sparkling, "sounds like an _excellent_ idea." She leaned in for another kiss.


End file.
